One slow move forward on a measureless board

The prescience of a marvellous birth to come.

Savitri: Book 1 Canto 1 Section 1 from 14:19 Almost that day the epiphany was disclosed Of which our thoughts and hopes are signal flares; A lonely splendour from the invisible goal Almost was flung on the opaque Inane. Once more a tread perturbed the vacant Vasts; Infinity’s centre, a Face of rapturous calm Parted the eternal lids that open heaven; A Form from far beatitudes seemed to near. Ambassadress twixt eternity and change, The omniscient Goddess leaned across the breadths That wrap the fated journeyings of the stars And saw the spaces ready for her feet. Once she half looked behind for her veiled sun, Then, thoughtful, went to her immortal work. Earth felt the Imperishable’s passage close: The waking ear of Nature heard her steps And wideness turned to her its limitless eye, And, scattered on sealed depths, her luminous smile Kindled to fire the silence of the worlds. All grew a consecration and a rite. Air was a vibrant link between earth and heaven; The wide-winged hymn of a great priestly wind Arose and failed upon the altar hills; The high boughs prayed in a revealing sky. Here where our half-lit ignorance skirts the gulfs On the dumb bosom of the ambiguous earth, Here where one knows not even the step in front And Truth has her throne on the shadowy back of doubt, On this anguished and precarious field of toil Outspread beneath some large indifferent gaze, Impartial witness of our joy and bale, Our prostrate soil bore the awakening ray. Here too the vision and prophetic gleam Lit into miracles common meaningless shapes; Then the divine afflatus, spent, withdrew, Unwanted, fading from the mortal’s range. A sacred yearning lingered in its trace, The worship of a Presence and a Power Too perfect to be held by death-bound hearts, The prescience of a marvellous birth to come.

Her sight that must break through and liberate the god

Book 7 Canto 2 Pg 486 Section 3 All this the spirit concealed had done in her: A portion of the mighty Mother came Into her as into its own human part: Amid the cosmic workings of the Gods It marked her the centre of a wide-drawn scheme, Dreamed in the passion of her far-seeing spirit To mould humanity into God’s own shape And lead this great blind struggling world to light Or a new world discover or create. Earth must transform herself and equal Heaven Or Heaven descend into earth’s mortal state. But for such vast spiritual change to be, Out of the mystic cavern in man’s heart The heavenly Psyche must put off her veil And step into common nature’s crowded rooms And stand uncovered in that nature’s front And rule its thoughts and fill the body and life. Obedient to a high command she sat: Time, life and death were passing incidents Obstructing with their transient view her sight, Her sight that must break through and liberate the god Imprisoned in the visionless mortal man. The inferior nature born into ignorance Still took too large a place, it veiled her self And must be pushed aside to find her soul.

One slow move forward on a measureless board

Savitri: Book 1 Canto 2 Section 2 5:43 to For this she had accepted mortal bredth To wrestle with the Shadow she had come And must confront the riddle of man’s birth And life’s brief struggle in dumb Matter’s night. Whether to bear with Ignorance and death Or hew the ways of Immortality, To win or lose the godlike game for man, Was her soul’s issue thrown with Destiny’s dice. But not to submit and suffer was she born; To lead, to deliver was her glorious part. Here was no fabric of terrestrial make Fit for a day’s use by busy careless Powers. An image fluttering on the screen of Fate, Half-animated for a passing show, Or a castaway on the ocean of Desire Flung to the eddies in a ruthless sport And tossed along the gulfs of Circumstance, A creature born to bend beneath the yoke, A chattel and a plaything of Time’s lords, Or one more pawn who comes destined to be pushed One slow move forward on a measureless board In the chess-play of the earth-soul with Doom,— Such is the human figure drawn by Time.

The universal Mother’s love was hers.

Savitri: Book 1 Canto 1 Section 2 2:45 to 17:06 Apart, living within, all lives she bore; Aloof, she carried in herself the world: Her dread was one with the great cosmic dread, Her strength was founded on the cosmic mights; The universal Mother’s love was hers. Against the evil at life’s afflicted roots, Her own calamity its private sign, Of her pangs she made a mystic poignant sword. A solitary mind, a world-wide heart, To the lone Immortal’s unshared work she rose. At first life grieved not in her burdened breast: On the lap of earth’s original somnolence Inert, released into forgetfulness, Prone it reposed, unconscious on mind’s verge, Obtuse and tranquil like the stone and star. In a deep cleft of silence twixt two realms She lay remote from grief, unsawn by care, Nothing recalling of the sorrow here. Then a slow faint remembrance shadowlike moved, And sighing she laid her hand upon her bosom And recognised the close and lingering ache, Deep, quiet, old, made natural to its place, But knew not why it was there nor whence it came. The Power that kindles mind was still withdrawn: Heavy, unwilling were life’s servitors Like workers with no wages of delight; Sullen, the torch of sense refused to burn; The unassisted brain found not its past. Only a vague earth-nature held the frame. But now she stirred, her life shared the cosmic load. At the summons of her body’s voiceless call Her strong far-winging spirit travelled back, Back to the yoke of ignorance and fate, Back to the labour and stress of mortal days, Lighting a pathway through strange symbol dreams Across the ebbing of the seas of sleep.

Her nature felt all Nature as its own.

Savitri: Book 1 Canto 1 Section 2 2:45 to 17:06 Too unlike the world she came to help and save, Her greatness weighed upon its ignorant breast And from its dim chasms welled a dire return, A portion of its sorrow, struggle, fall. To live with grief, to confront death on her road,— The mortal’s lot became the Immortal’s share. Thus trapped in the gin of earthly destinies, Awaiting her ordeal’s hour abode, Outcast from her inborn felicity, Accepting life’s obscure terrestrial robe, Hiding herself even from those she loved, The godhead greater by a human fate. A dark foreknowledge separated her From all of whom she was the star and stay; Too great to impart the peril and the pain, In her torn depths she kept the grief to come. As one who watching over men left blind Takes up the load of an unwitting race, Harbouring a foe whom with her heart she must feed, Unknown her act, unknown the doom she faced, Unhelped she must foresee and dread and dare. The long-foreknown and fatal morn was here Bringing a noon that seemed like every noon. For Nature walks upon her mighty way Unheeding when she breaks a soul, a life; Leaving her slain behind she travels on: Man only marks and God’s all-seeing eyes. Even in this moment of her soul’s despair, In its grim rendezvous with death and fear, No cry broke from her lips, no call for aid; She told the secret of her woe to none: Calm was her face and courage kept her mute. Yet only her outward self suffered and strove; Even her humanity was half divine: Her spirit opened to the Spirit in all, Her nature felt all Nature as its own.